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The Commission’s Lobby Register One Year on – Success or
Failure June 4, 2009
One year after the launch of the EU Commission’s voluntary lobby
transparency register, ALTER-EU has published a detailed report
highlighting its failures and putting forward concrete proposals for
improvement. The study reveals that only around 23 per cent of
Brussels-based lobby organisations have registered so far and that much
of the information disclosed is insufficient or questionable. Think
tanks and law firms are boycotting the register, while major corporate
lobby groups are still poorly represented. This shows the inadequacy
of the Commission’s voluntary approach.
While the flags of the individual member states can be seen flying outside the European
Parliament Building in Brussels, flags of a completely different nature fly in the inner courtyard
(photo: Corporate European Observatory, Amsterdam)
According to the ALTER-EU report, unclear financial disclosure
requirements allow lobby groups to disguise the size of their lobbying
effort, making it impossible to determine who the biggest spenders
really are and which policies they are trying to influence. The lack of
clear guidelines also means that the register is increasingly cluttered by
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